TRINITY SUNDAY
Today on Trinity Sunday, we gather to celebrate the Holy Trinity of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The concept of the Trinity is a profound mystery that theologians have grappled with for centuries.
While we may not fully understand it, we must believe by faith what God has revealed to us because His word is truth.
Through progressive revelation, God revealed more about the Triune nature of Himself throughout the writing of the Bible over 1,500 years - from around 1450 B.C. (the time of Moses) to about 100 A.D.
From the earliest verses of Genesis to the closing words of Revelation, we see glimpses of the Trinity’s presence and activity.
The Old Testament hints at it, and the New Testament reveals it more clearly, culminating in the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.
In the Bible, we see examples that clearly teach the truth of the co-existence of the Trinity. For example, in Matthew 3:16-17, After His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”
This interaction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is just one glimpse of the Trinity’s existence, just one example of where the Bible clearly teaches the truth of the co-existence of the Trinity.
Belief in the Trinity is essential to our faith, even if we do not fully understand the complexity of the Trinity.
The Trinity - The Triune nature of God is difficult for us to comprehend - It is a mystery.
There are many mysteries in life that we accept without fully understanding.
We take medication without comprehending how it works or understanding its chemical composition,
we use a microwave without knowing its inner workings and drive cars without understanding the intricacies of the engine.
However, the Trinity is not a mystery we can overlook because, without it, we lose the truth and power of the Gospel.
We believe in the truth of the Trinity by faith, even though there are aspects of God we cannot fully grasp.
We may not fully understand the mystery of the Trinity yet we must believe by faith what God has revealed to us because His word is truth.
Over the centuries, theologians have tried to understand and explain the nature of the Trinity.
St Augustine spent almost thirty years of his life writing a fifteen-volume work called “About the Trinity”.
15 volumes...
How long am I allowed to preach this evening?
A single sermon is not enough to explore every aspect of the Trinity but I hope that what God has laid on my heart will benefit you.
The Bible teaches us that by our nature, we are sinful and deserving of God’s wrath.
But Jesus, the Son, came to Earth to take the punishment for our sins upon Himself.
Through faith in Jesus, He imputes His righteousness to all who believe, making reconciliation with the Father possible.
We know because of what Jesus did at the Cross, reconciliation with Father God is possible.
After His resurrection, Jesus ascended into Heaven, and the Holy Spirit came to empower His disciples to live for God’s honour and glory.
Each person of the Trinity plays a role in our redemption. Without the Trinity, there would be no salvation and no possibility of a restored relationship with God.
But how can God exist as three distinct persons yet still be one God?
It is a mystery beyond our full comprehension.
The term “Trinity” may not be found in the Bible, but the Triune Nature of God is taught and demonstrated.
Here in Matthew 3:16-17, we witness the Father speaking, the Son being baptized, and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove.
All three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit together at the Baptism of Jesus.
All three co-exist and are co-eternal.
While we may grasp the concept of the Trinity, we can never fully understand it – three persons in one God, each fully God.
People have used various examples and illustrations to try and explain how the nature of the Trinity.
Some have said that the Trinity is like water.
Three phases of one substance are steam, liquid, and ice.
Some use the analogy of a three-leaf clover - one leaf three parts.
Some describe the Trinity as the same person with three different titles, for example, I am a Husband, a father and a Son.
None of those illustrations or analogies is really an adequate description of The Triune Nature of God. In fact, each of them are an expression of ancient heresies that falsely communicate who God is.
In the 18th Century the German, Gerhard Tersteegen said this: ‘A God understood, a God comprehended, is no God.’
God is not three beings, God is one.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons yet one God: all equally divine, all absolutely God, one nature, one reality.
Friends, I am thankful that although the Trinity is central to our Christian faith, we do not have to fully understand the mystery of the Trinity to believe in God and be in a relationship with Him.
Have you ever tried to solve a mystery?
A mystery, in theological terms, is not an enigma, a puzzle or something unknown.
A mystery is a truth which was at one time unknown or unrecognised, but which has now been revealed.
The truth of the Trinity is revealed in the Bible
Right from the first verses of the book of Genesis, at the beginning of the Bible, the Truth of the Trinity is there. The Father, The Spirit and The Son were there at the moment of creation.
Genesis 1:1-3 says In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Genesis 1:26-27 says: God said, “Let US make human beings in OUR image, to be like US. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
John 1:1-5 says In the beginning the Word - that is Jesus - already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
We have a great privilege, in our Bibles, we have both the Old and the New Testaments.
Over the centuries, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the writers of the Old and New Testament books and letters testify to the existence of God, the fall of man and the way of salvation.
The first five books of the Bible are attributed to Moses and are commonly called the Pentateuch (literally the five scrolls).
Moses lived between 1500 and 1300 BC, but he recounts events in the first eleven chapters of the Bible that occurred long before he was born like the account of creation and the flood.
These earliest accounts were handed on from generation to generation in songs, stories, and poetry.
In those early societies where there was no writing, people passed on oral accounts with great detail and accuracy.
The earliest writing began when symbols were scratched or pressed into clay tablets.
The Egyptians refined this technique and developed an early form of writing known as hieroglyphics.
The Bible tells us that Moses was “educated in all the learning of the Egyptians”, so he would have been familiar with the major writing systems of his time.
Chapter 31 of the book of Exodus records that when God had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, the ten commandments, written by the finger of God.
The Holy Spirit inspired and guided the writings of the thirty or so other contributors to the Old Testament over a period of a thousand years.
We have recorded for us God’s interaction with His people from the time of Moses’ successor, Joshua, to the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi in around 450 BC.
Prophecy, miracles, blessings, signs, wonders, poetry and history were recorded for us so that we can read, study and discover our eternal God’s dealings with His people.
Then there is a gap. A period of silence between the Old and New Testaments.
A blink of an eye in the vastness of eternity - a 500-year period when no writings were contributed to the Bible.
During those 500 years, Alexander the Great conquered much of the world and usage of the Greek language grew.
The books of the New Testament were written using Greek and Aramaic during the last half of the first century AD.
The promise that Messiah would come was revealed in the Old Testament and the fulfilment of that promise in Jesus, the way the truth and the life, is revealed in the New Testament.
One writer from Biblica the International Bible Society describes it like this, “It was the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, which ignited the flame that produced the New Testament, as the new faith swept across the Near East and then westward to Greece and on to Rome.”
Half of the New Testament books were contributed by one man, the Apostle Paul, in the epistles, the letters he sent to various groups of new disciples of Jesus and to his assistants Timothy and Titus.
The Bible closes with The book of Revelation, a book of visions and dramatic views of the future.
Revelation was written by the Apostle John around 95AD and describes the new heaven and the new earth when God’s kingdom will embrace the universe and sin, rebellion and death will be no more.
So, Why did I just give us a history lesson on the inspiration and construction of the Bible?
Because through the writing of the Bible over the period of 1,500 years, The Spirit of God, revealed more about the Triune nature of the Eternal Living God. God did not reveal everything at once.
The theological term for this is Progressive Revelation.
Progressive revelation in Christian Theology is the concept that the sections of the Bible that were written later contain a fuller revelation of God compared to the earlier sections.
God revealed knowledge in a progressive and increasing way throughout the Bible from the earliest writings to the later writings.
This does not mean that earlier books of the Bible are inferior or less inspired as later writings.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.
But The Holy Spirit has revealed more about the Nature of God with increasing clarity as more of the Bible was written.
Even with the canon of Scripture complete, even with all of the books and letters in our Bibles there are still things about God that have not been revealed to us.
There are things about God that our finite minds simply can not understand.
Final point: We BELIEVE in the truth of THE TRINITY by FAITH
There are things about the nature and existence of God that we will never be able to fully grasp.
The Bible contains the full revelation of God that we need to know and by faith, we believe it.
Hebrews 11:1-3 says Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in the days of old earned a good reputation. By faith, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, and that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.
For now, we trust God’s Word is true.
We cannot completely explain the mystery of the Trinity but by faith, we believe in the Triune Nature of God.
By faith, we are confident of things we do not see.
By faith, we believe in the Triune God.
By faith, we know we are loved by our heavenly Father.
By faith, we know Jesus is our Lord and Saviour.
By faith, we know the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives.
When Jesus returns and we, His Disciples,
are changed and transformed into His likeness,
when we are in Heaven in the presence of God;
then and only then will the mystery of mysteries,
the triune nature of God no longer be a mystery to us.
What was hinted at in the Old Testament and demonstrated in the New Testament will be fully revealed to us when we stand in glory with our Lord.
In Romans chapter 5, the Apostle Paul writes about how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit give us hope.
By faith, we are disciples of Christ.
God the Father is just and righteous.
Paul tells us we are justified with God the Father by faith. Justified means “made in alignment with.”
When we are justified with God, we are brought into alignment, made right, with God by faith.
How are we justified? We are justified through faith in Jesus, through God the Son.
Jesus the Son is the mediator, the intercessor for us with God the Father.
The Son is merciful and loving.
In Christ Jesus, we are able to stand before God the Father as justified.
And by the Holy Spirit, God operates in our lives. Changing, conforming, transforming and empowering us to be Dynamic Disciples.
The Holy Spirit is poured out to equip us with power from on high.
Each of the Three Persons of our One God have different attributes yet the Three work together as One so that we can be Saved.
So that we can be forgiven.
So that we can be assured of salvation and our eternal destiny.
The mystery of the Trinity is something we cannot fully understand but it is true.
As finite human beings, we will never fully understand our infinite God.
The mystery of the Trinity demonstrates the unfathomable nature of our God.
He is the God of the possible and the impossible.
God is our Father.
Jesus is our Mediator.
The Holy Spirit is our Helper.
They are Three and they are One.
God is with us and we can know it.
We can feel and know and be encouraged by The Triune God.
I will close with this: Today on this Trinity Sunday,
we may not know or understand everything about the Trinity, but what we do know and can understand is that God is real and He operates in our lives today.
Belief in THE TRINITY is FOUNDATIONAL to our faith.
The truth of THE TRINITY is REVEALED by PROGRESSIVE REVELATION in the Bible.
We BELIEVE in the truth of THE TRINITY by FAITH
It’s a mystery, it’s complex, but it is the truth, the three, Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, are One.
